Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Lava Children, Lizard King Re-Done

BRIEF INTERMISSION: In regards to the most recent barrel of fun here on the blogs: people so upset about Raggi and Goodman's games they just can't stop talking about them I hereby issue this special, Cherry-Dr-Pepper-drinking...The dudes are crying all the way to the bank. Aaaaanyway: Let's talk about Fiend Folio monsters instead.

So: for the L's---already did the Lamia, Noble. That leaves the Lava Children and the Lizard King.

Lava Children

...need no work. Babies made of lava are white-knuckle disturbing and creepy, largely because babies not made of lava are white-knuckle disturbing and creepy. They were left out of later editions because of some weird objection on the part of post AD&D TSR and WOTC to the idea of playing games where you kill children.

Anyway, the solution is obvious: use Lava Children anyway, just play this song while you do it. (Or this one.)

Jeff Rients turned them into little baby Buddhas which you kill, which just go to prove he's more blasphemous and Cannibal Corpsey than everybody else in DIY D&D put together.Anyway click to enlarge as usual...

Now we got the Lizard King who's the kind of monster I hate. Why couldn't have just been included in the Lizard Man entry as like a leader? Because he's got a special trident plus something. Yawn. It only works for the Lizard King but no PC will ever find this out because tridents are dumb.

Anyway, I made a commitment to find a way to use everybody in the Folio, so I had to figure out how to make the Lizard King not just a bigger lizard man so I made him a sort of frilled lizard guy. Which I like a lot and which idea was I realized as soon as I finished painting it, stolen from the Palladium TMNT "Mutants Down Under" supplement but whatever. Here's the guy...Artheads: If you're wondering, these were done with first an acrylic wash over unprimed paper (red for the lava kid, obviously, black for Jim Morrison there) then I went back and painted over the wash in black while it was still wet so little particles of black dots get into the paint and make those charcoaly fades. In the case of the Lizard King I then went and painted in a white background after. The Lava Kid's about an inch tall, the Lizard King's a little bigger...

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I quite liked the (obvious) reinvention of the Lizard King as a sort of Morrisonesque cult leader that someone on your blogroll came up with a while back. Buggers me out that I can't remember whose idea it was now. The frills could lend him a peacockish 'display' character trait - or telegraph attacks a la Jurassic Park.

I've been enjoying your take on the Fiend Folio. And thanks for the Artheads aside. As an artist, I'm always into how other folks are approaching their creative processes. That Lava kid is indeed creepy. Rock on!

I always loved that illustration at the bottom of the page of these guys fighting each other. It really drove home how creepy the lava children are, with those smiles and rosy cheeks and curly hair.

When I used lava children in my game, I ignored the "move through metal" effect. Instead, I decided that they were searing hot to the touch, and metal armour provides no protection because it conducts the heat straight through. Then I just had them act playful and childlike and oblivious, with that unthinking form of sociopathy special to young children and babies. They come at the party, and try to touch them play with them, and just sort of incidentally burn them to death.

Oh man, Mutants Down Under. I also HATE when monsters have magic items that PCs can't use. Which is cooler-- "I got this magic spear in a random treasure horde" or "I got this magic spear from the Lizard King!"

Obvs the lizard king's trident should be an ancient artefact (of laquered bone and desiccated scales wrapped around claw-carved basalt) passed down from the Serpent Masters of old that bestows a poisonous maw and hypnotic frills on any reptilian humanoid who grasps it.

For those wielders unblessed by scales and cloaca, the trident grants them those gifts first.